Page 26 of Melting His Grumpy Heart
“Don’t think so.”
“A rising star with big connections in the industry, and absolutely gorgeous. They were cast opposite each other in what was supposed to be Cooper’s big breakthrough film. A Christmas rom-com. They had amazing chemistry, apparently.”
Ru turned to look at Jake, pain and anger fighting for control in his face.
“I lost count of how many times he told me that. So amazing, in fact, Cooper decided our relationship was holding him back.” Ru swallowed hard. Jake ground his teeth and clenched his fists in impotent rage. “So he left. Packed up his stuff and walked out. Blindsided doesn’t even begin to describe it. I tried to get in touch with him, to get him to talk to me, but he blocked my number and my emails bounced back. I had no idea where he was and our mutual friends, which were really his rather than mine, couldn’t or wouldn’t help. It was a wall of silence, like they were protecting him.”
Ru fell silent as he rubbed his eyes. Jake waited, sensing there was more to come.
“The film had its big press launch a few weeks ago. It was on the telly. I don’t know what twisted masochism made me watch it, but I did. A journalist asked if the chemistry between him and Sophie was just for the camera. And do you know what he said?”Ru glared, anger in both his eyes and his voice. “No. That’s what. He was gushing about it being the real thing. Sophie was the woman he’d spent his life looking for. Jesus, I almost threw up. It was as if we hadn’t been together for over three years. As if I’d never existed.”
“He denied your relationship?”
“Yes. Utterly and completely. When asked directly about rumours regarding his sexuality, he said he was straight, but didn’t deny he’d experimented when he was younger. In other words, he was just queer enough to give him an edge, but not enough to alienate mainstream audiences.
“The public denial was bad enough, but what was worse was discovering he’d scrubbed his socials of any reference to me. He erased my existence. Not that I’d really featured that much to begin with, because his social media was curated to be all about him. And I understood that, because it was about his professional life, just like my own accounts are strictly about my work. But I’d never felt so stupid, not realising that whilst I’d been planning our future, he’d been planning his exit strategy.”
Jake watched Ru’s face in the flickering light, seeing the brief flare of anger give way to hurt and betrayal. He’d been there, done that, got not just the T-shirt but the fucking medal, too.
“Somehow, my name came up in another interview he gave,” Ru said quietly. “Cool as you like, he said we’d been flatmates for a while. That really got me. I was upset, but I was so damn angry, too. Unlike him, I didn’t hide who I was.
“It was only then that it hit me about how reserved he’d always been with me in public, how careful he was to not give any clues away about who and what we were to each other.” Ru blew out a long breath, his cheeks golf balling.
“Homophobia’s alive and kicking, and I always believed it was a way of protecting us both, whereas he was only protecting his reputation. But he must have thought he’d gone too far, andgot scared, because he came around to the flat we’d shared—my flat, the one I still live in—late one night, just before the film was due to release in all the big cinema chains.
“He wore a disguise! I couldn’t believe it. But, what Ididbelieve were his threats. He said if I spoke out publicly about our relationship, saying we’d been more than just flatmates, he’d take legal action. He’d claim I was harassing him, trying to capitalise on his new fame.”
The anger in Jake’s chest bloomed into something dark and savage. He’d faced enemies in combat with less rage than he felt towards this man he’d never met, and never would.
“So you just had to accept his lies?” Jake struggled to keep his voice level.
“By then, I didn’t have the strength to fight it. I just had to tough it out, but it got to the point where I couldn’t take seeing his face plastered across every bloody bus stop and advertising hoarding. It’s what made me want to escape from London. A remote cottage in the middle of nowhere suddenly felt like the best place in the world.”
Jake’s jaw clenched. He knew all about betrayal, but there was something particularly cruel about what had happened to Ru.
“He made me feel so small, almost invisible. So much less than who I’d been before.”
The admission hit Jake like a hard, physical blow. The idea of this man, good natured, a beacon of light in the dark, so genuine, being diminished by someone else’s selfishness was totally, fundamentally wrong.
“He took more than the relationship,” Jake said, forcing the words out through stiff lips. “He took your confidence, along with your place in the world.”
Ru looked up, surprise flashing across his face. “That’s… yes. Exactly. No one’s put it quite like that before.”
Jake didn’t answer, needing time to process what he’d heard, to manage the anger surging through his system. In the field, he’d learnt to channel emotion into action, to use it rather than be controlled by it. He did the same now, focusing on Ru rather than the absent ex who deserved a reckoning he’d likely never face.
“He was wrong,” Jake said finally, the words simple but weighted with conviction. “Not just morally but factually. You can’t erase what was real because truth is truth. What happened, happened. No amount of public denial changes that.”
A small smile touched Ru’s lips, a real one this time. “You make it sound so simple.”
“The situation wasn’t simple,” Jake acknowledged. “But the principle is. He lied. About you, about himself, about what you had together. That’s on him, not you. But he’ll always be looking over his shoulder, wondering when he’ll be exposed, when and where the words will come that’ll show him for the liar and coward he is.”
Ru studied him in the lamplight, something shifting in his expression. “You know, for someone who’s not a talker, you cut right to the heart of things when you do.”
“All I’m doing is stating facts.”
“Well, your facts are a lot better than all the tea and sympathy I’ve had to endure,” Ru said, his tone lightening slightly despite the lingering shadow in his eyes.
The space between them had changed again, the revelation creating a new kind of intimacy, something deeper and more vulnerable. Jake was viscerally aware that Ru had trusted him with something raw and painful. That trust felt weighty and significant.
